Jessamine; A Novel (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1901 edition. Excerpt: ...fixed upon vacancy. And she was here Hearing the gates that were to shut down between them forever. She called again--a shrill scream that scared the birds from their perches on the willow and birch boughs, and awoke a wailing echo among the mountains. Then all was quiet, save for the mill, the fainter roll of heavy wheels, and, louder than either, the lap lap lap of the waves upon the grassy bank. How deadly cold the water wasl And she became sensible now of an increasing weight drawing her downward--the strain of her saturated garments upon the arms wound about the rough pole which stood between her and death. There was a current, also, to be resisted, placid as the mirror had seemed from above, and her sinews were aching already. Her whole body would be numb presently--her elatch be relaxed by cold and the prostration of the ne: -vous and muscular system. She had decried life as tame, and the world as unlovely. She found them, in this fearfully honest hour, too dear and beautiful to leave thus suddenly. She recollected, even in thi- season of peril rud dread, the oft-repeated story that one in the act of drownii g recalls, to a flasc of memory, every event of his past existence, however remote and minute; reasoned within herself that this moat be an old wives' fable, since she, on the brink of eternity, had but one overmastering idea--how to avert impending dissolution. Her father, Eunice, Roy, and Orrin, were all in her mind by turns, but there was no quickening of affection now that she might be leaving them to return no more. They were, in comparison with the terrible fact of her present danger, but misty and far-off abstractions--faded portraits in her mental gallery, hardly deserving a glance. She dwelt, in agony, upon the...